Plasma display panels and methods of driving such panels are known in the art. Plasma display panels are matrix devices comprising individual cells defined by the intersection of rows and columns. The structure of a panel 1 as known from EP 0 762 373 is shown schematically in FIG. 1 in a front view. FIGS. 2a and 2b are a detailed perspective view and a side view, respectively, of a single cell 2. The panel comprises a front plate 3, made of a transparent material, and a back plate 4. A first set of parallel address electrodes 5 a1, a2, a3, . . . , an, an+1 . . . are located in a direction perpendicular to the first direction on the back plate. Barrier ribs 6, located parallel to the address electrodes 5, also on the back plate 4, perform the function of separating cells 2 from neighboring columns. A second set of electrodes comprises common electrodes 7 and scan electrodes 8. These electrodes are located on the front plate 3, facing the address electrodes 5 on the back plate 4. The common electrodes 7 are in this example divided into two groups, that is c1 and c2. The scan electrodes 8 s1, s2, s3 . . . are separately addressable. Said second set of electrodes is oriented in a first, in this figure the horizontal direction, which is substantially orthogonal to the address electrodes 5. Phosphors 9 deposited on the back plate 4 perform the function of converting ultraviolet light UV, produced by a gas discharge GD between a common electrode 7 and a scan electrode 8, into visible light VL. Light of the desired color, e.g. red, green, blue, is produced by selecting different types of phosphors 9.
Common electrodes and scan electrodes known in the art may be formed of a metallic part 10 and a transparent part 11. The metallic part 10 ensures the conduction of the current flowing through the electrode. Via the conductive transparent part 11 the voltages applied to the electrode are present across the desired areas of the cells 2. The transparent parts 11 may be made of a thin layer of metal oxides (ITO).
On display of successive picture frames on such a plasma display panel 1, a frame is divided into an odd field and a subsequent, even field. Odd rows, i.e. rows between electrodes c1 and s1, c2 and s2, c1 and s3 in FIG. 1, produce light during an odd field, and even rows, i.e. rows between electrodes s1 and c2, s2 and c1 in FIG. 1, produce light during an even field.
In known plasma display panels, each column requires one address electrode. A VGA display, comprising 640 columns, requires 1920 address electrodes (one for each color). Increasing the picture resolution by adding columns further increases the number of address electrodes and, therefore, the cost of the panel and the associated driving electronics.